CHARLOTTESVILLE — The script was fantasy: Injured point guard returns and doesn't miss a shot. Senior center scores an ACC career-high in his final home game and punctuates the afternoon with two stylish dunks.
The result was routine: Virginia defeated...

Virginia Tech just concluded its second stretch of three consecutive ACC road games, a burden no other league team has shouldered this basketball season. This week figures to be more taxing.
For only the second time in program history, the Hokies face...

Portending a wild March in Virginia, college basketball’s three most-clustered league races involve teams from the commonwealth.
Logjams at the top. Hoards lurking in the shadows. Clashes between contenders on the horizon.
Such is life in the Colonial...

COLLEGES:
Men's basketball:
Brian Darden scored a career-high 23 points Monday as Hampton University crushed Morgan State 93-65 in Baltimore.
Darden, a former Phoebus High standout, hit a 3-pointer on the first possession of the game, made another...

CLEMSON, S.C. — Once Jordan Roper quit thinking, his game flourished. And it couldn’t come at a better time for Clemson.
Roper had 21 points, including five 3-pointers, to lead the Tigers to a 75-54 victory over Virginia Tech on Saturday at Littlejohn...

During its final six seasons, 2008-13, the old Big East basketball conference averaged an unrivaled 8.5 NCAA tournament bids. In one remarkable fit of gluttony, 11 league teams landed in the 2011 bracket, and ninth-place Connecticut – ninth! – won the...

Virginia endured its second-worst shooting night of the season Saturday, missed 12-of-14 attempts from beyond the 3-point arc and lost the rebounding battle. Hardly a promising victory formula against the nation’s ninth-ranked team and a Hall of Fame...

Malik Muller started at power forward again Monday night for Virginia Tech, as apt a metaphor for this season's Hokies as you'll find.
Muller then scored a game-high 17 points and made the decisive shot in a 65-63, come-from-behind victory that also...

As the final seconds of his milestone victory melted away, the capacity crowd rose and chanted his name. Dean Smith was about to become major college basketball's all-time winningest coach, and his North Carolina Tar Heels, leading Colorado by 17...

Here’s how exceptional Virginia’s defense is: Yielding 47 points Sunday to Virginia Tech ranked among the team’s worst performances this season.
Seriously. Limiting the Hokies to 20 points below their average and further entrenching themselves as the...

BLACKSBURG — When we were kids, most every schoolyard boast prompted a two-word response: "Prove it." A few years later, trigonometry proofs were even more problematic.
Long story short: Nothing beats evidence.
And evidence is what Virginia...

ACC schools vowed in 2001 not to play Friday night football, long the domain of high schools. That changed in 2012, when the conference signed a contract with ESPN that increased rights fees by 30 percent and mandated three Friday games per season.
But...

CHARLOTTESVILLE — All the chatter of flips Wednesday was like an Olympics gymnastics or diving competition. I half expected to hear about degree-of-difficulty and some rogue Russian judge hosing an American out of a gold medal.
So amid the football...

Virginia and ESPN confirmed Wednesday that the network's College GameDay carnival will encamp in Charlottesville for the Cavaliers' Jan. 31 collision against Duke. Suffice to say, the show's only other basketball appearance in the state was memorable.
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